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i.
freshman year
fall semester
Of course he’s rooming with Nurse.
It’s really the cherry on top of a picture-fucking-perfect day. Dex has been up since five o’clock in the morning, an earlier-than-usual rise (even for him) determined not by choice but by pre-midterm nerves, and his MA 114 exam was fucking awful , despite all his fervent studying, all the hard work he put in to ensure it’d go well. He’s good at math; he should not have struggled on that test. He has no idea what brought it on, but he can’t go back and reverse his performance, and now his Calc grade is totally and completely fucked until he pulls it up again. Not to mention he had to go straight from the exam to his room to pack for the roadie this weekend, and the bus ride to The Middle Of Nowhere, Upstate New York was six hours long (sitting next to Nurse, by the way), and St. Lawrence kicked their ass in the game, 6 to 1, and he really just wants this day to be fucking over already.
But of course. God wants him to suffer. Because Coach Hall comes over to them with the clipboard on the bus after the game and says, “You two are rooming together.”
Nurse remarks, “Chill. D-men gang.”
Dex hangs his head in defeat and lets out a groan.
Nurse shrugs, then looks over the back of their seats to Ransom and Holster, who get along like perfectly normal defensemen, and who are completely fine to be sharing a room. “Tough crowd,” Nurse remarks, like it’s no big deal. Like Dex isn’t doomed to a night of torture.
Ransom and Holster laugh. Dex doesn’t move.
“Aw, c’mon, Poindexter,” Nurse tells him. He doesn’t look up. “It won’t be that bad.”
It is that bad. Nurse is the messiest person on Earth, and as soon as they get to their hotel room, his underwear are somehow everywhere. And not to mention his actual personality , which has been rubbing at Dex like sandpaper on metal ever since they arrived for their taddy tour. He’s the most insufferable human being on this planet. And he’s Dex’s d-partner. For the next four years.
Kill me.
“It could’ve been worse,” Nurse says, as they’re winding down for the night in the room. He sits cross-legged on the bed across from Dex, sifting through his overnight bag. His curls are messy and sweaty from the game, and he smells.
On a roadie where they won, they might be out celebrating, or at least being vaguely social in Ransom and Holster’s room, where the secret beer they smuggled on this roadie is for sure being hidden. But coming off of a loss that bad, no one wants to do much but sleep. They’ve been traveling all afternoon, and Dex is sweaty and sore and he has a headache, and he just wants a shower and some sleep.
“How the fuck,” he deadpans, “could it have been any worse than that.”
“I mean…” Nurse pulls his shirt off and balls it up, tossing it on the floor between their beds, where it seems like the entire rest of his wardrobe has already been strewn. “We could’ve been shut out. But we scored one goal.”
Dex feels his entire face heating to the temperature of the sun. “Jack scoring barely counts as one goal,” he snaps. “We played like shit, Nurse. All of us.”
“I mean.” There’s a ghost of a smile on Nurse’s face, like this is funny. “Technically, a goal’s a goal.”
“God, fuck off , Nurse,” Dex replies. He can feel his heartbeat in his ears. It’s been the worst day and Nurse is infuriating and he doesn’t want to deal with his nonchalant shit right now. “You’re not cool or ironic for not taking this seriously. You sound like an idiot, actually.”
Nurse scowls. “Who says I’m not taking it seriously?”
“You!” Dex cries. “With your stupid, oh, at least we didn’t get shut out, ha-ha — like, yeah, we didn’t get shut out, but we might as well have! That’s four losses in a row. Do you even care?”
“Do I have to remind you that you’re on this team too?” Nurse replies, all hints of a smile gone from his face. “So whoever you’re pissed at, maybe you should try accepting a little culpability before you just fuckin’ lash out at me.”
“I am fully aware that I’m on this team, asshole,” Dex says. “That’s why I’m saying we . We lost. As a group. And you could care less, because your ability to be at college doesn’t depend on the success of your team—”
“Oh, fuck off , Poindexter,” Nurse groans, “not everything is about fucking money, okay?”
“Well, maybe not for you —”
“You need to fucking chill.”
“You need to fucking stop telling me to chill , you self-important asshole—”
“ I’m self-important? You’re the one who can’t go five seconds without trying to guilt me about money, like everything in my life is so fucking easy just because money is involved—”
“Well, you’ve never known anything different, so how the fuck could you know how I feel?”
“You realize there are other differences between us besides—”
Knock-knock-knock .
Dex jolts at the noise from the door. His voice is raw in his throat; his fists are balled at his sides; his head is pounding, and he really, really wants to punch something right now. He can’t stand Nurse. He hates him more than he knew he could hate someone.
But that knock at the door. They both know who it belongs to. There’s only one person on the team who knocks like that.
Dex is only a little terrified, but Nurse acts first. He squares his shoulders, lets out a long, sharp breath, and walks to the door. When he opens it, Dex’s stomach turns at the sight of what he already knew was behind it. Jack is standing there in his team sweats, with wet hair from a shower, arms crossed, and the cold, dead, indifferent stare of a captain who is three hundred percent done with his freshmen’s shit.
“Is there a problem in here?”
“No, sir,” Nurse replies, and Dex bites his tongue to keep from rolling his eyes. Jack looks past Nurse to him, and he unclenches his fists. “Sorry if we were too loud.”
“Well, you were,” Jack replies. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but… just get some sleep, both of you. Or we’re gonna have a problem in the morning. Clear?”
“Clear,” Nurse echoes.
“We’re sorry, Jack,” Dex adds, but Jack is gone without another word.
When he walks away, Nurse closes the door a little too forcefully and whirls around to scowl at him again. “Good job yelling,” he spits. “Now we’ve got him on our asses.”
“Oh, fuck off, Nurse,” Dex fumes. “You were yelling first.”
“Bullshit.” Nurse stalks back over to his bed. “I’m taking a shower.”
“Whatever.” Dex unzips his overnight bag, grateful for the deferral, but still fuming. His ears are burning as he searches through the top for something to sleep in, but before he can find it, he unearths a red lump.
Oh . Fuck. It’s Cromwell.
He covers him with a stray shirt before Nurse can see, but he’s glued to his phone now with a lingering scowl on his face, so at least he’s not paying attention. Dex doesn’t remember packing Cromwell, exactly, but he’s always in his bed, so he probably made his way into his bag when he was stress-slash-rage-packing after his exam.
Cromwell is… a stuffed lobster. He’s had him since he was a baby; he was a gift from his uncle. He has black, beady eyes and he’s made of red plush. Ma has had to sew him up multiple times. He goes with Dex everywhere, even though he’s way too old for shit like that.
It may be ridiculous, but Cromwell means home. Home is a place he’s never missed more than he does right now.
College is not what he thought it’d be.
“Hey, Poindexter.”
Dex snaps his head up, covering Cromwell all the way, and holding him under the shirt with his hand for good measure. Nurse is en route to the shower, in his underwear and armed with a change of clothes, still looking thoroughly pissed.
Good. Let him be mad. He’s a fucking asshole.
“What,” Dex grumbles, but it’s not a question.
Nurse flicks his clean shirt over his shoulder. “Fix your shitty attitude and maybe we’ll win next time.”
*
ii.
sophomore year
fall semester
“Hey, Dex, wait up!”
The thing about walking in the middle of a crowded hallway during class change-over time is you can’t really stop walking. Even when your d-partner is ten feet behind you, shouting for you to wait for him. Dex veers to the side and sighs vaguely as he picks out Nursey, weaving between and crashing into other students like a walking speed bump, until he reaches Dex’s side.
“What, are you leaving me in the dust?” Nursey is slightly out-of-breath from his attempt to catch up. Dex falls back into step, with him at his side this time, and they merge back into the crowd like it’s I-95 at rush hour. Which, let’s be real, it kind of is.
“I was trying to beat the crowd,” Dex replies. “Where’d you go? I thought you were right behind me.”
Nursey waves vaguely in the direction of the lecture hall they just spent the past ninety minutes in. “I had to throw away my Pop Tart wrapper.”
“That’s incredibly nutritious,” Dex mutters, and Nursey flashes a proud grin.
“You know it, Dexy boy. Also, by the way?” As Dex picks up their pace to pass a cluster of very loud field hockey girls, Nursey half-jogs behind him. “I can’t even lie; I almost fell asleep in that just now.”
“I saw,” Dex remarks. “If you haven’t remembered, I was sitting right next to you.” This was a mostly involuntary choice on Dex’s part. On the first day of their gen history lecture this semester, Nursey plopped himself down in the seat next to him, all smiles. Dex! I’m so honored, dude! We have a class together!
“I can’t help it!” Nursey says, hiking his backpack up over his shoulders. They reach the double doors that lead outside, and they’re cast into the day— it’s mid-afternoon, a beautiful, breezy fall day. Leaves in every color are flying everywhere. When they got back from their fall break three days ago, it was like Samwell had been transformed into a New England foliage tourist ad overnight.
It really is pretty, though. Dex likes this time of year.
“There’s only so much I can listen to Professor What’s-His-Face talk about dead white men,” Nursey is saying, “before I literally would rather be watching paint dry.”
Dex shrugs. “I don’t mind the Founding Fathers.”
Nursey snorts at him. “Of course you don’t.” Then he spreads his arms wide and shouts to the sky. “ Yo , what a day , man. Can you believe how nice it is out right now?”
Dex can believe it. A tornado of leaves swirls at their feet, and the sidewalk they walk down is flanked on either side by quads where students are hanging out, studying, and playing Frisbee. The sky is cobalt blue, and the sun is warm on Dex’s shoulders, despite the breeze that hints at colder days to come.
All he says to Nursey is, “It’s nice.”
“Look!” Nursey picks up a random leaf from the ground. It’s bright orange, and he holds it up to Dex’s head, then laughs his ass off. “Shall I compare thee to an autumn’s day?”
As Nursey tosses the leaf aside with a flourish, Dex replies, “I’m literally a STEM major and even I know that’s not how that poem goes.”
“It’s a sonnet, not just a poem.” Nursey spins in a random circle, then sways from edge to edge of the sidewalk as they walk, reciting more random Shakespeare parodies. “Thou art more ginger and more petulant—”
Dex cringes as he does this dance, and watches him almost crash into several people, who, thankfully, all veer out of his way. “Jesus Christ, Nursey, watch where you’re going,” he says. This is just the way Nursey acts when he’s in a good mood— all bravado and fluidity, he walks to the beat of his own drum— but he’s a danger to the general population of Samwell University, not to mention himself. “Sorry,” Dex mutters to the people he’s almost collided with, and they continue on their way.
“And often is his freckly complexion dimmed— ah, fuck , that’s not the right syllable count.” Nursey falls into normal step with Dex again. “Okay, you’re saved. But don’t rain on my parade.”
“You’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t look where you’re going,” Dex replies. “And, like, possibly multiple other people.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He reaches to clap Dex’s backpack with one hand. “ So , anyway—”
“Hey, be careful. My laptop is in there.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s critically broken because I touched it one time.” Nursey actually rolls his eyes, which is usually Dex’s job, but then again, he’s still grinning. As they walk along, he remarks, “By my count, we’ve got— one, two, three— okay, four and a half hours ‘til practice. And I think you know what this calls for.”
Dex does not know. “What does this call for.”
“Coffee,” Nursey replies, then he veers abruptly right at a fork in the path, in the direction of the student center. “But first, the mail room. I ordered something, and I think it came this morning.”
The mail room has potential to be a mob scene at this time of day, but when they get there, it turns out it’s not so bad. While Nursey goes to check his box, Dex pulls his lanyard out of his bag and decides he might as well check his mail while he’s here. He’s not expecting anything, but Ma sends him random stuff sometimes.
When he checks, there’s a small packet in his mailbox, addressed to him from home in her loopy handwriting. He pulls it out and locks the box up again, then tears it open to peek inside. He sees the card first, a small one with sunflowers on it tucked into a little blue envelope. Ma is a big fan of flowery greeting cards. She sends people cards for literally any reason at all. He has a collection in his desk.
Junior,
Looks like you left someone at home over the long weekend! He missed you, so I’m sending him along. :)
Love always,
Ma
Oh my God . Will knows what’s in the packet before he even checks, and when he looks, his suspicions are confirmed. It’s Cromwell. As in Cromwell the lobster. As in, the stuffed animal. He left him on his bed in his room at home, on purpose, when he packed up to come back to Samwell after the holiday weekend. He’s a sophomore in college. He doesn’t need to bring around his childhood stuffed animal anymore.
But seeing Cromwell in the package makes his stomach turn, and all at once he’s a little homesick. He looks like home— smells like it, even. Ma sent him here, so he won’t send him back.
“Hey, bud,” he murmurs, then feels like an idiot for talking to a stuffed lobster. In public. At least it was under his breath.
He tucks the whole packet into his backpack and surveys the scene, a sea of Samwell sweatshirts and students opening mail, until he sees Nursey, who’s tearing open a packet of his own. He has a burnt orange oak leaf stuck in his hair. Dex resists the vague urge to pick it out as he approaches. “What did you order?”
“A scarf,” Nursey replies, then throws away the packaging and shows him. It is a scarf, an expensive-looking knit one in white and maroon.
“That looks like a women’s scarf,” Dex remarks.
“Hey, scarves don’t have a gender,” Nursey replies. He tosses it over his head, and Dex kind of hates that it instantly matches his sweater. Nursey is like that. He can do nothing and still look put-together. “And besides, look,” he adds. “Samwell colors.”
Dex eyes the leaf again. Nursey seems to sense that he isn’t as interested in the scarf as he is, then shrugs and starts for the stairs with him. “Anyway, what’d you get?”
Dex almost reddens. Cromwell and the package may be safely tucked away in his bag, but even the proximity of Nursey to that lobster is terrifying, given how much ammunition Nursey would have for making fun of him if he so much as laid eyes on it. “My ma sent me a card.”
“Oh, chill.” They start up the stairs step-in-step. “Do you wanna go to Annie’s? I’ll buy.”
Dex’s response is automatic, almost a defense mechanism. “I don’t need you to buy coffee for me.”
Again, Nursey rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Poindexter, I was offering nicely , not patronizing you,” he says. “You know… like a friend?”
Dex meets his eyes at the top of the stairs. He almost apologizes, then doesn’t. “Okay. I could use a coffee.”
And Nursey grins again. “That’s what I thought you’d say.” He pauses. “Even though you take it with a sinfully small amount of sweetener.”
“ Your coffee order is, like, half your daily calorie count.”
“That’s called loving yourself, Dexy. You should try it sometime.”
The leaf is still in his hair. It’s clinging like a balloon with static electricity. Maybe Nursey is a leaf magnet.
“Nurse,” Dex says, then, fuck it , steps forward and plucks it out himself. He waves the leaf in his face. “This was in your hair.”
Nursey grins and takes it from him. “It chose me,” he says. “I’ll press it in my notebook.”
Dex squints at him for a second, then shakes his head to himself as they walk back out into the day, en route for Annie’s.
Nursey can be so fucking weird sometimes.
*
iii.
junior year
fall semester
It’s moving day.
Will has barely made it to Lardo’s old room, and it’s already stressing him out. From the stacked bunks to the awkward fit of the two desks to the limited closet space, there is nothing about this room that’s meant to be shared. It may be on the bigger side, but it’s not big enough for two full-sized defensemen. Especially not when those two defensemen are himself and Derek Malik Nurse.
He tried to ignore it all summer. Every time he thought about moving in, he’d try to redirect his train of thought somewhere else. He went through the five stages of grief about three times over. He even resorted to asking God to give him strength. No matter what, the fact remained the same. He and Nursey were going to be roommates.
And now the day is upon him. When he walks into the room, stripped bare since Lardo’s graduation and waiting for the two of them to inhabit it, the silver coin still stuck between the floorboards seems to mock him. It catches the midday summer light through the window, glinting in his eyes as if to say, eat shit, Poindexter; this is your life now .
He plops his first box of stuff down right on top of where the coin is lodged in the floor.
Fuck off.
“Alrighty.” Right on his trail, Drew sets a box down beside him. “How do you wanna tackle this?”
Will straightens up to look at his brother. He’s a little taller than Drew is, but not by much, since they both got the good height genes from Pa, who’s six-two even. Their parents say they were always mistaken for twins in their younger years, but Drew is three years older than Will, so it didn’t last long. Will doesn’t really see it, anyway. They both have red hair, but Drew’s is a gentler color, more like Ma’s strawberry, and he doesn’t have nearly the face full of freckles Will does. Not to mention the ears, or the weird amber eyes, which both come from Pa, and which Drew avoided. As a general rule, he has most of Ma’s softer features.
Will, on the other hand… well, he knows he’s his father’s spitting image. He’s just spent a summer at home, being told by everyone he knows how he’s looking more like him every day. Mount Desert Island is small, and everyone in Will’s hometown knows his family.
Coming to Samwell means getting away from that caged-in small-town feeling, coming to a home and a family that you choose. Even if, he has to remind himself, even if that means rooming with Derek Nurse.
“What do you mean by ‘tackle this’?” he asks.
Drew gestures to the two boxes on the floor. They’re heftily sized, and they’re mostly all clothes and bedding. Will only has six boxes to bring up. “Should I go keep getting stuff and you start unpacking, or should we bring it all up at once?”
Drew, like Will, is a hands-on, get-’er-done kind of person. It runs in the family.
“I can keep helping you carry,” Will tells him finally, wiping his hands on his shorts. “And from there, we can… yeah. Try to start working this out.”
They make two more trips down to Will’s truck, and then, with the six boxes sitting in the middle of Lardo’s bedroom, Will realizes all at once that he has no idea where he wants to begin.
“Ugh,” he groans into his hands. Drew hovers by his shoulder with his arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. When he meets his brother’s eyes, he tries to muster up an explanation for his strange, vaguely feral noises. “I feel like I can’t do anything until he gets here.”
“I can’t believe you have to room with that guy,” Drew says. “Isn’t he, like, a huge pain in the ass?”
“He’s just…” Will trails off and finds himself staring out the window, trying to find the right words to describe Nursey. How do you encapsulate that man to someone who doesn’t really know him?
When he comes up blank, he shrugs. “We just butt heads. I don’t think we’ll make good roommates. Teammates, fine, but room mates…” He shudders all over again.
“He sounds like a douche,” Drew remarks, then he bends over and pulls open the cardboard lid of one of the boxes. Will almost feels bad for a second— because yeah, Nursey is annoying, and yeah, they argue a lot, but he wouldn’t call him a douche , really. At the end of the day, he’s his teammate. And, on good days, his friend. Or something.
His friend that he has to room with. Fuck. He shakes it out and kneels next to the box Drew has just opened. “Well, you got here first,” Drew says, then tilts his head to the bunks. “So you can claim your bed.”
This is, in fact, true. Will surveys both beds, one stacked on top of the other, and tries to decide which one he wants. Nursey is accident-prone by nature, and Will notes that taking the bottom bunk would almost certainly put Nursey in danger of hurting himself. The ceiling looks a little too short, like whoever sleeps up there would hit his head if he sat up too fast— that is, if he wasn’t being careful, which means Nursey is way more likely to do so than Will would be. And God forbid drunk Nursey try to make it up to the top bunk—
“I say take the bottom,” Drew says abruptly, and Will jolts out of his brain. “Less of a pain in the ass.”
He’s right. Will knows it. When he looks over at him, Drew is half-shrugging, his arms still folded. But he can’t shake the feeling that he probably should just take the top one, to save Nursey all the potential injury.
“I… yeah,” Will mutters, then pauses. “It’s just that Nursey might…”
He can’t finish the sentence looking at his brother head-on. He doesn’t even really know what he wants to say, except Nursey might hurt himself , which Drew will make fun of him for even considering as a factor in bed selection.
“Might what? Who cares what he thinks?” Drew says. “You got here first.”
Will shifts his gaze back to the beds and sighs.
“You’re right.”
What follows is a Poindexter-brother relay of taking sheets and clothes out of boxes, then trying to make up the bed. Will’s sheet set is simple, and it’s not that he doesn’t know how to make a bed— he does it all the time at home, in the room he shared with Drew before he moved out, in the bed his feet hang over the edge of— it’s just that this is a bunk bed propped up against a wall. It requires a little bit of maneuvering, but they get there eventually. Halfway through the endeavor, Chowder pays the room a visit ( Dex!! I missed you so much, bro!!! I’m so excited we’re Hausmates!! Is Nursey here yet? ) on the way to his own room down the hall, and he offers to help with the bed, but Drew shakes his head ( we got this, but thanks ).
When the deed is done, they turn to the other stuff in the boxes. He’s sliding his blue pillowcase over the pillow he brought from home when Drew opens the top of box number four and breaks out in a wide smile. “He- ey ! Look who it is!”
Will cocks an eyebrow, shaking the pillow into the case, then dropping it on the mattress. “What?”
Drew pulls something small and red out of the top of the box and holds it up, his grin persisting. “It’s Cromwell!”
Will takes in the sight— it is indeed Cromwell, in all his red plush glory, scrunched awkwardly in Drew’s hand but just as trusty as he’s always been. “I thought I left him at home,” Will says.
“Aww, dude,” Drew replies, with this patronizing smile that brings a flush to Will’s face. “You know Ma would’ve never let you get away with that.”
Drew walks by him, places Cromwell atop his head, and laughs at himself before bending over to open the last of the boxes.
Will stands there doing his lobster-balance act for a second, then sighs, tilts his head, and reaches up to catch Cromwell as he slides to the side. He turns him over in his hands a few times, then lets out a sigh. Drew’s right. This is Ma’s doing. Every time he tries to leave him at home, she makes sure Cromwell finds his way back to Samwell.
After a moment of deliberation, Will places him on top of his pillow. He’ll move him later.
Drew is going through his clothes, which means he’s lost in flannels packed almost a foot deep. “How many of the same shirt do you own?”
Will rolls his eyes and kneels next to him, pushing him aside. “You should ask yourself that question, since most of them were yours.”
“Yeah, but I made them look good,” Drew replies. “You just look like a fuckin’ dweeb.”
Will sighs— “Whatever.”— and pulls one out, red and black plaid. It’s worn and at least ten years old.
“Look…” he mumbles. “I’ll start hanging up clothes. Can you do me a favor and unpack the rest of the stuff so we can get the boxes out of here? Just put it all on my desk or my bed.”
Drew nods. “On it.”
They unpack in mostly silence for awhile more. Will can hear Chowder playing music across the hall; the window is open, too, and the area is alive with various athletes like them arriving for their pre-seasons. Classes don’t start for two weeks, but campus will be hopping from now until… well… winter break, Will guesses.
The start of a new school year is comforting. But also maybe a little daunting.
He’s putting books in his desk drawers when there’s a gentle rap at the door. “Welcome back, Dex,” says a familiar voice, and he glances up to find Bitty in the doorway, all smiles, in a Falcs Stanley Cup Champions shirt. He’d guess it’s Jack’s, except that it actually looks to be made in Bitty’s size, so probably not. Said shirt also has flour all over it, but that’s just normal Bitty. “How was your drive down?”
“Hey, Bitty,” he replies. He can see Drew studying him out of the corner of his eye. “It was good. Not much traffic.” It’s a solid five and a half hours from Bar Harbor to Samwell— six if you stop for food— but at least it’s a nice drive.
Thank God, Bitty speaks to Drew first. “Oh! You must be Dex’s brother.” He flashes his Southern hospitality smile. “I don’t think we’ve formally met.”
“Yup,” he offers, then, “I’m Drew.”
“You can call me Bitty,” he says, and his smile turns soft and almost proud. “I’m a senior. I’m our captain this year.”
“Yeah, I know,” Drew replies. “Saw you on TV in June.”
Will tries not to melt into the floor. His brother can be so fucking rude sometimes. And okay, yeah, it was Bitty and Jack’s choice to do what they did, and they knew the whole world was going to see it, but he knows Drew’s saw you on TV doesn’t come from a place of being happy for him.
The brief silence that follows is tangibly awkward, and Bitty flushes at the cheeks just a little before turning back to Dex. “Nursey just got here,” he tells him. “He’ll probably be up in a minute.”
Dex’s stomach somersaults. Great. “Thanks, Bitty.”
When Bitty is gone, he’s making a mental note to apologize to him later on behalf of his brother, who, apparently, doesn’t fucking know how to act around a gay person— and then Drew interrupts his train of thought. “Can’t believe he’s your captain.”
His words are mumbled, but Bitty could still be in earshot. Evidently, Drew doesn’t care if he’s heard. “He’s not a bad person,” Dex whispers.
“Never said he was,” Drew replies. “Just doesn’t seem like the type that should be playing D1 hockey.”
Dex maybe feels ill. “He’s a good player.”
“Well, I guess, but he’s…” He trails off and shrugs.
“He makes good pie,” Dex says, uselessly, and Drew snorts.
He hears Bitty’s voice in his head. Nursey just got here. Any attempt to relax is gone now, and might be for the foreseeable… entire semester.
Drew adjusts his Red Sox cap, then asks, “Hey, where’s the bathroom in this place?”
Dex waves Drew down the hall. “Last door on the right.”
Alone in the room, he looks around. It’s still sort of a disaster scene, and he knows the second Nursey arrives it’ll just get worse, because if his roadie and locker room habits are any indicator, the man is the furthest thing from organized— but at least all his own things are on their way to being arranged neatly.
Then his eyes land on his pillow, and he lunges for the bed. Cromwell. If there’s one thing he can prevent about today, it’s Nursey making fun of him for owning a stuffed lobster. He tucks him into his desk drawer, apologizes under his breath, and closes him inside.
He hears Nursey before he sees him; his voice comes from the stairs. “Hey, Poindexter! Oh— sorry, man. From behind, I thought you were your brother. It’s Drew, right?”
Oh, Christ. This is going to be an adventure.
He’s taping a picture of the ocean he took at home to the inside board on his desk when it happens. Nursey shows up in the doorway, armed with a box and the world’s most certifiably annoying smile. They meet eyes across the room— their room; Jesus — and Nursey nods his head like he’s been waiting for this moment. “William James Poindexter the second.”
Dex sighs. “It’s junior.”
“I was being ironic.” Nursey saunters into the room, puts his box down, and spreads out his arms. “But what’s up, roomie?! How are you? Missed me?”
Oh, boy. He hasn’t seen Nursey since Cup Day in July, which really wasn’t that long ago, but it was long enough ago to let himself adjust to a world without the constant presence of Nursey. He looks almost just as he was when he last saw him, save the presence of a newly inked design above the cuff tattoo on his bicep. He wears a bright purple tank top, his green cap, a pair of sunglasses, and Birkenstocks. He is an enigma all his own. And he is truly the world’s biggest pain in the ass.
He’s still going. “You look tan!” he says, surveying Dex, and Dex sighs, because he definitely does not; summers on his uncle’s boat grant him nothing but sunburns and more freckles. Nursey actually does look tan, but then again, he’s always tan. “Check out my new ink!” He points to his arm. It’s some kind of plant-looking design— or are those supposed to be wings? It curls up towards his shoulder, and Dex doesn’t stare at it, because Nursey’s tattoos are boring and stupid. “Pretty chill, right? Anyway. Dude . How are you? How long ago did you get here?”
Dex is already not prepared to deal with this.
It’s not that they haven’t talked since Cup Day. They kept a steady correspondence over the summer, but it was mostly through 3-way Skype calls with Chowder, or sending random memes to each other, or the group chat, or an occasional phone call. It’s more that being with Nursey in person is a whole different ballgame than making digital correspondence. It’s one thing to field a text conversation. It’s another entirely when he’s standing right in front of you and is going to be your roommate this year .
“I’ve been here for, like, an hour,” he deadpans. “And my brother is helping me unpack.”
“Chill!” Nursey grins. He moves his sunglasses to rest on the top of his hat. “My parents are downstairs. I think Bitty might’ve offered them pie. Or something.”
“Oh.” Dex pauses. “Yeah. Sounds like Bitty.”
Nursey is still grinning at him, like they’re long-lost best friends who haven’t seen each other in forever. “Look,” he says, then makes his way across the floor with his box. “I’ve given a lot of thought to this whole sharing a room thing, and y’know what?” As he puts it on top of the empty desk, he looks Dex’s way over his shoulder. “I think we’re gonna turn out just fine.”
Dex rolls his eyes.
“Aw, c’mon, dude,” he replies, still all smiles. “Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘growth starts outside your comfort zone’?”
“What are you, a therapist now?”
“I’m just saying.” Nursey swings around and puts his sunglasses back on. “I think this semester’s gonna be lit .”
“God.” Dex lowers his head and returns to his desk box. “Shut up, Nurse.”
Nursey passes him on his way back out of the room. He nudges his arm, just gently, and gives him a smile that feels softer, more sincere, enough even to warrant Dex not rolling his eyes in response.
“Missed ya, Dexy.”
*
iv.
junior year
spring semester
Dex should be studying.
His CS 386 final is in less than twenty-four hours, almost less than fifteen. It’s the last of his four exams, and it’s also going to be the hardest one. He should be going over the material, hunkering down in the basement with the door closed, popping the lid of his laptop and going to town. Rationally, he knows all of this. He knows this is what he needs, knows he needs to ace that test.
But.
He can’t get up. He got back to the Haus a long time ago, an hour ago or maybe two, he’s lost track. He was coming from his library study session for this exam, which went fine, completely fine, and Bitty, in his Four Days Till Graduation baking bonanza, offered him a croissant as soon as he was through the front door. In a croissant-induced haze, he went to the basement, dropped off his backpack, then walked up the stairs to Nursey’s room, where he sits now, on the bottom bunk, staring at the tiny stuffed lobster in his lap.
He’s not sure why he has Cromwell. He knows how he got him; he usually rests on his bed in the basement, and he picked him up before coming up here— but he can’t say what exactly compelled him to bring him upstairs.
All he knows is that his brain is racing. He can’t stop it. He can’t get up. He’s been here for at least an hour, just sitting, and he can’t do anything but run his hand over the well-worn red plush.
Cromwell has beady, black eyes, and they’re not comforting today, where in other times their indifference has comforted him. He’d laugh at himself if he didn’t feel so paralyzed. He’s twenty-one years old and he’s dealing with a panic attack by staring at a toy lobster.
He’s so stiff and so tense that, when the door creaks a little and Nursey walks in, he actually breathes the briefest involuntary sigh of relief.
“Oh, ‘sup.” Nursey drops his backpack in the doorway as he takes note of Dex’s presence. He’s wearing his green hat and a jean jacket, and his stubble is well grown in, even though playoffs are long since over. “I didn’t expect you to be in here.”
Dex’s anxiety clouds his ability to respond for a second, and when his conversational skills make a late reappearance, he realizes all at once that Cromwell is in plain sight. “Sorry,” he says, then makes a hasty move to tuck him away, slipping him under his leg. “I can leave,” he adds, as Nursey slips out of his Birkenstocks. “If you want.”
“No, hey— don’t even worry,” Nursey replies. His socks have Shakespeare on them. It’s easier to study them than to look at him head-on. “It’s totally chill. It’s your room too.”
Not really , Dex thinks, but doesn’t say it. Because even though they both had the Dibs, this was mostly Nursey’s room this year— Dex, just as Nursey predicted, was the one who cracked first; he was the one who built his basement enclosure. Though he didn’t completely move to the basement, spending time up here on the good days, sleeping up here every now and again, he certainly didn’t live in this room the way Nursey did this year. He was the one who brought half his stuff downstairs. He was the one who threw a fit. As if maybe, repeatedly pushing Nursey away would have eliminated the mounting feeling he’s been trying to ignore, the bubbling in his chest when he looks at him, the butterflies in his stomach.
The panic at the idea of feeling that way at all.
He tries to tear himself out of his brain by asking Nursey, “You all done?”
“Ch’yeah,” Nursey replies, a big grin on his face. “Four down and zero to go.” His last final was this afternoon. “I want to square up with the inventor of blue books.”
Dex takes a deep breath. It doesn’t help. His chest feels like it’s going to explode. Maybe, if he keeps talking to Nursey about normal shit like finals, it’ll subside. “What, like, fight them?”
“Yes,” Nursey replies, and then gears up for Soliloquy About Useless Topic mode. “Look— I get the whole academic honesty thing? But, like, we’re college students.” He talks with his hands, makes big, swaying motions. “If someone’s going to cheat, they’re gonna find a way regardless of if they can use a computer. So why do our hands have to suffer?”
Dex offers up a grunt. He hasn’t had to do an essay on an exam since his gen world history course with Nursey, sophomore fall.
“And don’t get me wrong,” Nursey continues, “I love handwriting. But not handwriting a timed essay on an exam .” He flexes his left hand, and Dex tries not to focus too much on how it’s covered in veins, how he knows it’s smooth and warm to the touch. “Plus, the environment,” he adds. “Like, it’s uneconomical. It wastes paper. Do you know how much paper we’d save, as a society, if students were allowed to type all their essays on exams?”
Dex shrugs. Nursey’s eyes are dancing in the springtime light through the window. They match the color of his hat. Dex hates that hat.
“Sorry,” Nursey says, then steps forward to muss up Will’s hair. He almost ducks away from the touch, then decides he doesn’t care. “I won’t make your little ginger Republican head explode by talking about climate change.”
Dex sighs. “I’m a registered independent, Nurse,” he says, which Nursey knows, but he still busts his ass to get a rise out of him. “And I believe in climate change.”
“Right on, dude.” Nursey holds out his fist. Dex eyes it suspiciously for a second, then sighs again and bumps it with his own. “Save the polar bears.”
Nursey walks to his backpack and unzips it, digging out an assortment of small paperbacks and notebooks, all of which he promptly dumps in a pile on his desk. Most of his books are in near-perfect condition, because he buys them new from the bookstore at the start of the semester. Dex’s rentals are a mess, the result of bargain deals on Amazon or anywhere he can get them cheapest.
Nursey then tosses himself into his desk chair. “Exams— check.” It’s the spinning type, which is terrifying for Nursey reasons. He puts his hands behind his head and smiles at the ceiling. “Now all that’s left to do is pack, kick back, and—”
“Let me guess,” Dex replies. Nursey meets his eyes. “Chill.”
Nursey’s lopsided smile threatens to re-awaken the butterflies in Dex’s stomach. “And you said we’d never be friends.”
“When did I say that?”
“Uh, like, twenty million times frog year?” Dex shrugs, and Nursey pauses, examining the book explosion he’s just created on his desk. “I have to sell these back. You going to the bookstore today?”
“No,” Dex mumbles. “I have one more test.”
Nursey reaches into a desk drawer, procures a pack of gum that may or may not be from fall semester, and unwraps a piece to pop in his mouth. He tilts back in his chair. “When’s your last exam?”
“Tomorrow at nine,” Dex says, then, “You shouldn’t tip your chair back like that. You’ll fall and get hurt.”
Nursey grins and shrugs. “Don’t worry. I’m a professional.”
Dex watches him for a moment, declines Nursey’s offer for a piece of gum, and then looks back into his lap. Cromwell is safely tucked away under his leg so he won’t see. His brain hasn’t slowed down.
To Nursey, or maybe to himself, he remarks, “I should be studying.”
And he really should.
But.
In 24 hours, his junior year of college will be over, and a few days after that, Bitty will graduate, and he’ll be a senior, and he’s not so sure he wants to know how this team looks without constant baking in the kitchen, without all the people who were here when he started at Samwell, with himself as its main leader. He’ll be captain and Nursey will be an alternate and so will Whiskey, and that’s all fine, or at least it should be, but is he really cut out to be leading this team when he can’t control his temper, can’t talk about his feelings, can’t even get his racing brain under control?
And Nursey’s finals are already over, and soon he’ll be back where he belongs, back in New York with his nice house and his city friends and his summer internship at some fancy publishing house, and he’ll be a solid eight-hour drive away from Will, and he won’t think of him, because why would you think about someone you’re only friends with on a good day, someone who’s done nothing but push you away, especially when they can’t figure out how to tell you that hey, Nursey, I’m going to miss you this summer —
I already miss you.
And a year from now, it’ll all be over— college and Samwell hockey and this Haus and Nursey , they’ll all become things that once were, not thinks that are, and Dex will walk into the real world and get a job and Nursey will go his own way and oh God Will will be all alone again—
And this final is all that stands between him and home, but he’s come to realize over the past three years that maybe, home is Samwell; maybe it’s the sound of skates hitting ice at an early morning practice at Faber or a fresh-baked cherry pie after class on a random Tuesday or movie nights in the Haus living room all crammed together or the constant, steady, comfortable flow of his banter and bickering and back-and-forth with Nursey—
Because all that waits for him at home in Maine is a wide open sea and his oblivious parents and the smallest town in the smallest harbor, and it’ll be early mornings and long days on the boat in the sun and mass on Sundays, and trying to figure out how to even begin to tell his family the terrifying truth he now knows about himself, the truth he knows could ruin their close-knit dynamic forever—
And at the center of it all is Nursey , who’s going home to New York and who won’t miss him and who Dex doesn’t know how to tell that he’ll miss him, that he might be in lo—
“Are you okay?”
Nursey’s voice yanks him out of his head, and he jolts. He’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, but now Nursey has leaned forward in his desk chair, and spun it to face him. His brows are furrowed, and he looks more than a little concerned.
“Dex?” Nursey continues. “You look mad distressed, dude.”
“I—” Dex chokes on his voice, and he wants to melt into a puddle of the redness he knows is overtaking his face. He can’t find his words.
Nursey shifts out of casual-nuisance mode and into concerned-friend mode in less than a second flat. He gets out of his chair, crosses the small space between them, and sits next to him on the bottom bunk. It’s not the first time he’s seen Dex like this, and it won’t be the last. Dex hates admitting that Nursey is the only person in the world who has ever been able to successfully talk him down from these panic attacks.
If that’s what they’re called. Dex doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. He feels so broken, and he’s hurting, and he misses Nursey already even though he’s sitting right next to him; God , how can you miss someone you haven’t lost yet?
“Okay.” Nursey’s voice is gentle, and Dex wants to wrap himself in it, but he can’t say that out loud and he can’t have him and God he’s so sick of feeling like this— “I’m right here. Let’s talk this out.”
Nursey is quiet for just a second, and Dex nods, trying a breath that ends up getting caught somewhere in his tightened chest. When he feels Nursey’s hand on his back, he jumps, but from surprise and not disdain— Nursey’s touch is warm and strong and steady.
Sensing his jump, though, Nursey draws back a little. “Do you not want to be touched?”
“It’s fine,” Dex replies, and he leans into it a little, trying not to choke on his own breath.
“Okay,” Nursey says. “It’s okay. Just breathe.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know you are.” Nursey is quiet for a moment. Dex can’t look at him. He stares at the floor, at their feet side-by-side. The Shakespeare socks have quotes on them, but his brain hurts too badly to read any of them.
Nursey rubs his back in slow circles. “Are you stressed about going home?”
As much as he knows he should just say yes, he can’t find the words. Nursey knows him well enough to ascertain this when he’s nonresponsive for more than a moment. Cromwell is an awkward lump under his leg, and he says a silent apology for crushing the little guy.
“Just breathe,” Nursey repeats. He moves his arm a little, rests it across his shoulders. Though they’re the same size, in that moment Dex feels so, so small. He leans toward him, just enough to bump their shoulders together, to feel Nursey’s warmth up against his own. His stomach is turning somersaults.
Being touched by him isn’t new. Nursey is a tactile person, especially when he’s been drinking, and Dex has been on Nursey Patrol plenty of times at kegsters; he’s had to practically carry drunk-Nursey up the stairs or give him hugs to appease him or parade around with him hanging on him reciting drunken poetry. But even when he’s sober, Nursey touches him a lot— bumps against him when they walk side-by-side, drums on his shoulders when Dex is working on his laptop, ruffles up his hair at random.
The thing is that Nursey is relatively tactile with everybody , not just Dex. He has been ever since he knew him. The difference, for Dex, is that somewhere along the way, his heart started racing every time Nursey touched him, skipping a beat with every gesture Nursey gave without thinking. For Nursey, he’s sure they mean nothing. But for him…
Jesus. He hates himself. He’s in so deep.
And then there’s Nursey, still next to him, still with his arm around him, still gentle. When Dex is unwell like this, Nursey is always gentle. “You can talk to me, y’know,” he says. “If there’s something that’s bothering you. You know I’m here for you.”
When he looks up, Nursey is smiling. His eyes almost sparkle. Dex tears his gaze away.
“I’m your loyal d-partner and roommate,” Nursey tells him. “And friend. If you say so. So, basically. If you need to talk about something, I’m always here.”
Freshman Dex would have told him to fuck off.
Sophomore Dex would have rolled his eyes.
Junior-almost-senior Dex blurts out the one thing he’s been thinking over and over, but has never, ever said out loud.
“I’m gay.”
When the words are out, he expects the worst. He expects to feel like throwing up, to dissolve into more panic, or, worst of all, for Nursey to laugh at him. But the tightness in his chest loosens, just a little. It’s not an unraveling of knots, but it’s the smallest weight off his shoulders.
Nursey, for his part, is quiet for a few seconds. Dex stares into the space in front of them for a few heart-pounding, awful seconds, with the weight of his confession hanging in the air, before he finally can’t take it anymore and looks up.
Nursey is smiling.
He expects the next thing out of his mouth to be some pretentious shit, some I’m so honored you trusted me with this moment stuff from bad coming-of-age movies. It feels the most like Nursey.
Instead, Nursey’s words are soft and sincere. “Thank you for telling me.”
Will lets off a long breath. Nursey rubs his shoulder again. All this time he thought telling him would be this awful, difficult affair, and it’s over in less than five seconds. His brain is still racing, but here’s Nursey, gentle and warm and not going anywhere.
“Is that why you’re stressed about home?” Nursey asks after a moment.
Will exhales. Home . It’s like a prison sentence. “I think I’m stressed about everything.”
“That’s fair,” Nursey replies, nodding steadily. Will sneaks a glance at him. God, he’s beautiful. He’s so fucking beautiful, and he knows it, and everyone else knows it, and now he knows about him, and God, he wonders if he sees him any differently. He’s not sure if he wants him to.
“Am I the first person you’re telling this?”
“Yeah— yeah.” His next breath out is harsh. “But I want to tell Chowder.”
“You should,” Nursey replies. “But at your own pace.”
Nursey was already basically out when he got to Samwell. Will can’t remember the exact moment he learned he was bi, just that it came on his radar early. He’s openly, comfortably out. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t give mentioning it a second thought.
Will will never be that kind of person. He’s sure of it. It’s terrifying enough to be gay in the first place.
“Hey… Will?” At his real name, he peeks up to look at Nursey again. “Your breathing sounds really hard. Do you want to do an exercise?”
“An exercise?” he echoes, then chokes on a breath as if to prove Nursey’s point.
“Yeah,” Nursey replies, then pulls his knee up onto the bed and turns sideways to face him. Will mirrors him, and all at once he’s aware of just how close their bodies are, pressed together at the legs and inches away at the chest and intertwined at the hands as Nursey laces their fingers together.
It means nothing for him , Will reminds himself. It’s normal.
“Okay,” Nursey says. He tips his head forward, leaving inches between them. “My therapist at Andover taught me this.”
At another time, Will’s brain might have focused on the fact that of course he found a way to mention fucking Andover in a serious conversation about mental health, but now he goes somewhere else. “You had a therapist?”
“Yeah,” Nursey says, half-laughing and casting down his eyes. “I have issues of my own, believe it or not.”
Will blinks at him. His curls sit perfectly under his hat, and his stubble hugs his jawline like the tide on the sand, and his tattoo wraps around his bicep, and he’s perfect. He’s always been perfect. “But you’re so…” Will pauses. “Chill.”
Nursey shrugs like this is a conversation he’s had a thousand times, when he’s never heard him mention a therapist to anyone. “Some people can fake it.”
Will sobers, feels a pang in his chest. The way he says it, it’s clear there are plenty of untold stories behind those charming green eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Nursey shakes his head. “Don’t be.” He squeezes his hand, and Will feels blood rush to his face. Nursey, mercifully, does not acknowledge it. “Okay, so… tell me five things you can see.”
They work through the exercise, counting down with the senses. He can see Nursey’s hat, and the Samwell pennant on the wall, and the tree outside the window, and the Shakespeare socks, and the pile of books on Nursey’s desk. He can touch the bedding beneath their legs, and the knee of his worn-out jeans, and the warm side of his own face, and Nursey’s hand, steady and strong in his own. He can hear Bitty’s baking music downstairs, and cars passing on the street below, and the sound of Nursey’s voice. He can smell mint gum and the coconut oil Nursey uses in his hair. He can’t taste much but his own breath, but Nursey laughs when they reach this part and tells him that’s okay, he’s gotten this far, and that’s the hardest part of the exercise anyway.
“I think I need to lay down,” Will blurts, half conscious of the fact that he’s said it out loud. Nursey nods, lets go of his hand and scoots aside.
“Of course, yeah,” he says. “Whatever you need.”
Will tips backwards until his head hits the pillow. He can still feel Cromwell lodged under him, but he’s safely out of Nursey’s sight. With the mattress safely under his back, he looks at the underside of the top bunk and takes a long, steady breath.
Then Nursey looks down at him and asks, “Are you okay if I lay with you?”
Will can’t find words, but he nods, so Nursey does. He reclines onto his side next to him, and the next thing Will knows he’s wrapping his arm around him and Will is putting his head to his chest and they’re breathing in time and oh God they’ve never touched quite like this before. He guesses maybe they’ve cuddled. They’ve shared the bunk once or twice when Nursey was drunk. He’s fallen asleep on his shoulder watching TV. But those were all times when Nursey thought he was straight.
Will’s stomach is doing acrobatics.
“Got your back, Will,” Nursey hums, his voice somewhere by his ear.
God. God. Fuck. Derek Nurse.
He lays with him, curls into his arms, and tries to shut everything else out. The feeling of being pressed against him starts to wash the other things away. Nursey rubs his back.
He’s not sure how long they’ve been laying there when he finds the words to mumble, against his shoulder, near his tattoo, “Shouldn’t you be packing?”
“Nah…” Derek says. “I can pack later.” He pauses. “Priorities, y’know?”
Will doesn’t know. Or at least he doesn’t have the mental energy to unpack what that means right this second.
So he closes his eyes and rests in Derek’s arms.
*
v.
senior year
fall semester
Friday, 1:24 PM
Text Message
Derek: baaaaaaaaabe
Derek: when are you coming back from class
Derek: i’m bored
Derek: and deprived of attention
Derek: i miss youuuuuuuu
Will climbs the Haus stairs two by two, with a coffee in each hand. One belongs to him, and is half-empty, plus both are sort of sweating, because he’s been carrying them for ten minutes and they’re iced, but… the things you do for love.
The Haus is quiet— today was the last day of classes before the fall long-weekend break, and whoever isn’t going home is at least out doing something right now, except Louis, who may be nocturnal, given the fact that he was napping on the couch when Dex walked in. Whiskey is doing something with Chad this weekend, and he’s pretty sure Hops went home this morning. Chowder and Cait are staying on campus, and they invited him and Derek to come with them tonight to get food and see IT . Will is vaguely excited to see Derek be a huge wimp about a clown, but mostly just to spend time with him and their friends. With the season starting, time to do social things off-campus gets more and more scarce.
The afternoon, meanwhile, is theirs. It’s a beautiful day, if a little windy. He reaches the top of the stairs and rounds the corner into their room. “Special delivery.”
Derek is laying in bed, but not in his own; he’s sprawled out across the perfectly-made sheets of Will’s, reading. He wears a blue flannel that was definitely stolen from Will’s side of the closet, unbuttoned over a white t-shirt with its sleeves cuffed.
“You didn’t respond to my texts!” he cries, sitting up straight as Will walks in. “And I know you saw them, ‘cause you left me on read.”
“I was two minutes away,” Will replies. “And before that, I had to wait in line at Annie’s. Which was a mob scene, by the way.”
He drops the full coffee into Derek’s hands, who marvels at it like it’s a trophy. “Is this for me ?”
Will rolls his eyes. “No, it’s for the other man in my life who takes way too much sweetener in his caramel latte.”
Derek takes a long sip, and his eyes flutter shut in sweet coffee euphoria. “I have never been more in love with you.”
Will rests a hand on his shoulder just briefly to plant a peck on his cheek, then sets his backpack in his desk chair and unzips it. “That’s my bed,” he remarks. “And my shirt.”
“Firstly,” Derek says, sprawling himself out on the mattress again, “why go up the ladder when there’s a perfectly good bed right here? Secondly—” He slides a bookmark into his paperback. “Boyfriend shirts are free real estate, and thirdly … I literally slept in here last night. And the night before.”
“Uh-huh.” Will pulls his laptop out of his backpack, then sets it gently on his desk. “If I develop scoliosis when I’m thirty because you tried to cram both of us into a twin-sized bunk nightly, I’m blaming you for it.”
“Don’t worry.” Derek ruffles the curls at the back of his head and flashes a smile. “I’ll be there to take care of you.”
Will meets his eyes and smiles. The warmth in his cheeks is a welcome feeling.
As he gets the last of his books out of his backpack, then hangs it on the side of his desk, not to be touched until next Wednesday, Derek asks, “How was class?”
“Ugh,” Will mutters, pulling his zip-up hoodie off. “Remind me never to take a Friday afternoon class again.”
Derek’s smile threatens to break into a laugh. “Well, you only have one semester left,” he points out.
“That’s true,” Will mumbles, then sits down in his desk chair, spinning around to face him. “But you were smart. Your schedule is—”
“The best? I know.” Derek shrugs as he lounges on the bed, moving one hand behind his head and sipping coffee with the other. “What can I say? I’m a master of the art of arranging my classes.”
Will pulls his phone out of his pocket. Aside from Derek’s recent texts, he has three new notifications— an update from the NHL app (Jack scored a hat trick in Vegas last night), an Instagram DM (Chowder sent him a meme), and a reminder from his fitness tracker to log his workout for the day. He lingers on his wallpaper for a second— the Derek in it is wearing sunglasses and kissing his cheek under the New York summer sky; the picture is three months old, but the only thing that’s different is that Derek’s stubble has grown in a little since then.
He puts his phone down on his desk and looks his way. Derek is still smiling at him.
It makes his chest warm where it used to tighten.
“What do you wanna do tomorrow?” Will asks him. “We have the whole day.”
“Hmm.” Derek looks at the bottom of the top bunk while he thinks, and it’s clear he doesn’t have anything particular in mind, so Will capitalizes on the opportunity, since he’s been thinking about this for about three weeks.
“I was thinking,” he says. “We could take a drive.”
“A drive?” Derek’s eyes light up. “Where do you wanna go?”
Will shrugs. “We could go down to, like, Newport, maybe. I bet the foliage is pretty.” He pauses. “We could sit by the water. You could write.”
Derek swoons. “Have I mentioned you’re the most romantic person in history?”
Will shrugs, and he can’t help the small smile on his face. “Something like that.”
There’s a moment of pause, while they hold eye contact. “That sounds perfect,” Derek tells him, and Will nods.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll plan out a route, then.”
Derek looks from side to side conspiratorially, then shifts his sitting position a little. He moves his hand to his side from behind his head and scoots forward a little.
“Babe,” he stage-whispers. “If I’m not mistaken, we literally have the Haus all to ourselves .”
“False,” Will replies, tilting his head toward the door. “Louis is asleep downstairs.”
“Keyword asleep .” His green eyes dance in the sunlight through the window. Will’s stomach flutters. Derek somehow always finds a way to get to him.
He holds out a hand and beckons for him on the bed, setting his coffee aside. “C’mere,” he hums, smiling ever still.
Will gets out of his chair and closes the small distance between them to meet him there. When he sinks down next to him, he sits halfway on his leg. It’s a slightly cramped space— the whole room is; it always has been— but it’s theirs. He wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Derek holds him by the waist, and Will takes his face in his hands. When he sinks down into their kiss, it’s the most natural feeling in the world. He runs a thumb along the edge of Derek’s stubble, and feels Derek smile against his mouth with soft lips. He tugs him just a little closer at the waist, and Will takes a gentle handful of his curls in one hand.
“Gotcha,” Derek hums when they come up for air, and Will laughs.
“Shut up.” He kisses him again. Derek is warm, holding him tight, and he pulls him into his lap, which is a feat given they’re the same size, but Will isn’t complaining. He thumbs again at the stubble on his cheek, and he decides, yeah, he really likes him this way. He shouldn’t shave.
It takes a few kisses before they fall backwards, and when they do, it happens all at once; Derek lets himself tip back onto the mattress and he takes Will down with him with a flump . Will breaks away from their kiss to laugh. “Careful,” he chides. “You could’ve hit your head.”
“I was being careful,” Derek insists, as Will props himself above him a little better. Beneath him, Derek is bathed in midday autumn light, with his shirt on and a lopsided smile and a mouth he now knows feels so nice against his own. He thinks maybe, this is what life is supposed to feel like all the time. Derek makes him happier than he’s ever known he could be.
Who would’ve thought.
“Hey, what’s the holdup?” Derek hums, which pulls him back down to Earth. “I’ve been waiting all day for this.”
Will laughs. He leans down to press his forehead to his, smushing curls against his brow. “You are an attention whore.”
“Only for your attention,” Derek replies, and then they’re kissing again. Will has memorized the perfect way to prop himself over him, the way their bodies fit together in this small space. It’s the way they’ve lain for many lazy kisses in the mornings, for stolen moments together between classes, late at night after something more intense. It’s been three months, and some of it was summer, but somehow Will feels like he’s been kissing Derek for years on years.
Derek’s lips are soft and full, and he tastes only slightly like the caramel latte. He runs his hands up and down his waist, which feels good until he starts to use just his fingertips, which tickles more than Will wants to admit. Until he squirms involuntarily, and breaks away from a kiss. “ Hey . That tickles.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have told me that,” Derek says with a gleeful smirk, and Will laughs and shouts protest as he tries to foil Derek’s attempts to wrestle him into a prime tickling position. Derek can’t pin him, but he can’t exactly pin Derek, either, so it’s a two-way struggle punctuated with laughing for a minute—
— until something falls out of the bed and onto the floor.
There’s a little fwish sound as it hits the ground, and Will peeks over the side to see what they’ve dropped. At first, he thinks it’s Derek’s book. But it’s too small and obliquely shaped to be anything resembling a book. It’s red and plush, and—
Oh God. He forgot Cromwell was in his bed. He lays, beady-eyed and indifferent, on the carpet beneath the bed, and Will stares at him for three entire seconds before making a quick grab down to scoop him up. He stuffs him under the pillow and then checks on Derek, whose brows are furrowed. He looks thoroughly intrigued, and vaguely amused.
“What was that?”
Will takes a long moment to decide what to do next. The thing is that it’s kind of a miracle Derek hasn’t already discovered Cromwell’s existence. He’s always technically in their room somewhere, and he travels with Will everywhere, tucked into his overnight bag on roadies or his backpack when he goes between Samwell and home. He even took him to New York when he drove down to see Derek this summer. But he’s never formally met him. No one outside Will’s family knows about Cromwell.
Will sighs. He looks down at Derek for a few seconds. He’s still beautiful, and still curious. “Babe?”
They’ve been dating for three months. He’s been in love with him for so long. It’s time.
Will reaches under the pillow, closes his hand around the small, plush tail, and draws him out. He faces him towards Derek, squeezes his eyes shut for a second, and then looks at him head-on.
“This is Cromwell.”
Derek is smiling, just slightly, with the corner of his mouth. His eyes are bright, and he takes in the sight of Cromwell with all the wonder and gentle joy in the world. “Cromwell the lobster?”
Will’s face is the temperature of the sun, and so are his ears. He ducks his head. “Fuck off, Derek; yes, it’s Cromwell the lobster. He’s—”
“Whoa— whoa, hey.” Derek holds him by the waist with one arm, rubbing his thumb at his hip, and reaches with his free hand to place it gently on top of Will’s. On top of Cromwell. “It’s chill,” he says, his voice as tender as his gaze. When he smiles, it only further induces Will’s blush. Derek adds, “It’s cute.”
“He’s uh.” Will wants to melt. His heart thumps in his ears. He hides his face in one hand. “I got him when I was a baby—”
“Babe. Will . My love.” Derek squeezes at his waist, pulls him a little closer. “This is, no lie, the cutest shit I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Will peeks through his hand with one eye. “You promise you’re not making fun of me.”
“I would never .” Derek’s smile is full now. He pats the top of Cromwell’s head, and Will hides his face again. “I love him. Can I hold him?”
“I— yeah.” Will surrenders him to Derek, who examines him for a moment more while Will’s entire body burns in his sheepish embarrassment. When Derek looks up, he can probably definitely tell that he kind of wants to die right now, because he puts Cromwell gently down next to them and pulls him close again.
“Hey,” he hums, mouth brushing his already. “C’mere.”
Derek’s kiss is sweet and long, but Will can only stay in it for a few seconds before he has to pull away. He can’t make out with his boyfriend with the beady, innocent eyes of Cromwell Poindexter only two inches away on the bed. “Hold on,” he says, then picks him back up, nudges Derek’s head aside, and slides him under the pillow.
“Sorry, buddy,” he murmurs, and Derek lets off a laugh that sounds like it could nearly bust one of his ribs. While he loses his shit, Will rolls his eyes at him, tipping back to straddle his hips until he’s done with his laughing fit.
That laugh, though. It’s a sweet, sweet sound. Will has gotten used to it.
“Couldn’t do it with him watching?” Derek manages to get out, and then he’s dying again. He presses his face sideways into the pillow to stifle his laughs.
Will folds his arms and waits, but he feels his own body shake with the tiny laughs that bubble up in his system.
Okay. Maybe it is a little funny.
“I have never been more in love with you,” Derek says finally, wiping at the sides of his eyes.
“You said that, like, fifteen minutes ago,” Will replies.
“Gets better every day, baby.” He wraps his arms around his waist, and Will lets himself be guided back down. “What can I say.”
Will smiles against his mouth. “You’re such an idiot.”
And then he kisses him.
Like, all afternoon.
*
one time he didn’t
the summer after graduation
It’s moving day.
The day itself, Will guesses, is almost over. He sits on the front steps of his brand-new apartment, gazing out at the Beacon Hill street, lined with trees and brick buildings and window boxes full of flowers. The early-summer sun warms his shoulders. It’s golden hour, and it’s beautiful outside. It’s his first time not being on his feet since the crack of dawn this morning.
“... don’t worry, Ma. I know the summer is busy,” he says into his phone. “When things wind down at the dock, you and Pa can drive down. It’s just an apartment. You can come see it anytime. I’ll be up for the Fourth, and…”
“Oh, I know,” Ma replies, a smile in her voice. “We just miss you already.”
Will smiles just a little. He rubs his knee with a sweaty palm. “Me, too,” he says. “But I don’t wanna take hours away from Pa just for a visit.”
“I know, darling. Don’t you fret. He’ll be just fine.”
His parents want to see the apartment, and Will… well, he wants them to. But there are some things he needs to tell them before they do, and stalling is his friend right now.
Thankfully, Ma doesn’t stay on that topic right now. “And your first day of work is…”
“June the fourth,” he replies. “Two weeks.” His senior spring semester internship was with a software developer, and he drove to Boston from Samwell twice a week in place of a class. In March, they offered him a full-time job for after graduation, two weeks after Derek had gotten a letter from Harvard granting him admission to their graduate English program.
Will took the job on the spot.
“I’m proud of you, Junior,” Ma tells him, and his stomach seizes. He loves her so much; he loves his whole family, but there’s so much about his life that they don’t even have an inkling about.
He doesn’t want to lose them when the time comes for them to know.
“Thanks, Ma,” he says. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she replies. “You get a good night’s sleep, alright? And tell Derek we say hello. I’ll have your pa text you before bed.”
“Okay,” Will says, and he hears the apartment door open behind him. When he turns to look, Derek is stepping out onto the landing, attempting to balance several pizza boxes in a dangerously tilted stack. “Will do. Night, Ma.”
“Bye, Junior.”
The second his call disconnects, he gets up and lunges to help Derek with the Leaning Tower of Pizza. But Derek cries, “No! I got this. Hold on.”
Will steps back, but stays on guard. Derek takes a few wobbly steps, then drops the pile at their feet and flashes a proud smile. “I was testing my balance skills.”
Will leans against the railing by the front steps. “How’d that work out for you?”
“Good enough.” Derek pauses. “Can I sit with you?”
“Sure.” They take side-by-side seats on the top step. Derek looks out over their new neighborhood, resting his arms on his knees, and Will slings an arm around him, which he leans into without a second thought. They’re both still in their moving clothes— tank-tops and shorts, because it was hot as balls today, but Derek has changed from his sneakers into his sandals sometime since he left him in the kitchen to take Ma’s call.
“Hi,” Derek hums, tipping his head to rest on Will’s shoulder.
“Hi,” Will echoes. He kisses his brow. Derek smiles, and his eyes flutter shut. “How you doing?”
Derek keeps his eyes closed. Will rubs at his other arm, dragging his knuckle gently across his tattoo. His skin is warm and soft to the touch.
“Never better,” Derek says.
Will tilts his head against his.
It’s been a very long, very busy day.
“Talk to your mom?” Derek asks. Will nods. “What’d she say?”
“Just wants to visit,” he replies. "And she says hi."
Derek cracks an eye open. “What’d you tell her?”
Will chuckles a little. “That they should wait till the heavy season is over.”
“Mm.” Derek nods, then closes his eye again. “Gives you time. Smart.”
“Yeah.” Will’s sigh is a little shaky. “I’ll… I’ll figure out a way to do this. Soon. Before they come visit.”
The first step to letting your parents come see your one-bedroom apartment is telling them that it’s a one-bedroom apartment. Which means telling them you’re in love with the man who’s supposed to just be your roommate, your college buddy. Which means telling them you’re gay.
“I’m with you, Will,” Derek tells him, like he can read his mind. “You and me.”
“You and me,” Will echoes, then reaches for Derek’s hand. He links their pinkies together, and it’s the world’s most minimal handshake, but it means everything. “Thank you.”
“Always.”
For a few minutes, it’s quiet on the porch. The occasional car drives by, but their street is tucked away, a residential corner in one of the busiest parts of Boston. It’s the perfect place to live. Derek’s parents helped them pick it out. (Dr. Nurse has a penchant for random apartment shopping, apparently.)
Will rubs at Derek’s shoulder, and they rest together, and they’re quiet. The pizza boxes lay beside them, remnants of their day. They ordered Papa Gino’s to feed Derek’s parents and his sister, plus Ransom and Holster, who pitched a hand in the moving process too.
The Nurses are put up in the Park Plaza hotel for the night, and they’ll meet them for breakfast tomorrow before they head home. For now, though, the night is all their own.
Their first night in their first home together.
Will smiles.
“What’s the move?” Derek asks, when the comfortable quiet has enveloped them for awhile, and the sun has warmed them together. “Wanna go inside? We could try out the shower.”
Will lets off a long breath. He’s sore from all the lifting today. “That requires looking through our shit for the toiletries.”
“They can’t be far.” Derek lifts his head, then stands up, holding both hands down to him. “C’mon, big Dexy. You can do it.”
Will takes his hands, laughs, and lets him pull him up.
Inside is a little bit of a disaster scene, but they step over boxes and walk through bare spaces soon to be filled with evidence of their life and their growing love and the adventure they’re about to embark on together. Will takes note of everything that needs to be done as he passes each box and each spot. It’s a lot. It’ll take days. The whole week, maybe. Until he starts work.
And he thought moving in at college was a lot.
The bedroom is small, but it has good window light. There’s space on the wall for pictures that Derek says he wants to get developed.
Derek tosses himself backwards on the bed, one of the only things they’ve finished setting up, because a fully made-up place to sleep is necessary. “I think I’m dying,” he announces. “My calves hurt like crazy.”
“Nice,” Will mutters, unfolding the top of the nearest cardboard box, where he’s hoping to find something beneficial for showering. “If you die, I’ll be pissed, by the way.”
“I think I might.” Derek presses his palm to his face dramatically. “Can you give me a massage?”
“Maybe after we shower.” Will sifts through stuff in the box— some clothes, mostly his, plus two pairs of shoes and a bunch of hangers. So definitely no toiletries in this one. But tucked between two flannels, secure as can be, he finds a little red plush.
“Hey, Der,” he chuckles, reaching into the box. “Look who I found.”
Derek peers over to him, sitting up in bed, and when he catches sight of what Will’s holding, his eyes light up. “ Cromwell !”
Will smiles at his old friend. He hasn’t been away from Cromwell, exactly; he’s always been right here, and Will was the one who packed him in this box to be brought from the Haus to the apartment. But Cromwell has sure seen a lot of change. He feels like they’ve been through everything together.
Which, they have, basically. And here they are facing down the first real part of his adulthood.
And they’re doing it with Derek.
“That’s my man,” Derek declares, patting the top of Cromwell’s head. “Legends only. What’s up, dude? I missed you.”
He’d have it no other way.
“Here,” Derek says, then holds out a hand. “If I may?”
Will passes Cromwell to him, and Derek leans up to the top of the bed, where their pillows are in a cluster, ready to be slept on. Gently, almost tenderly, he places Cromwell atop the frontmost pillow of the bunch, then looks back to Will with a wide smile.
Will laughs. He can’t help himself. Then he sits down next to Derek on the edge of the bed. “You sure you want him there?”
“I’m positive.” Derek wraps his arms around his waist. Will turns to face him a little, and they linger there for a moment, side-by-side, intertwined.
Then Will rubs the back of his neck, meets his eyes. “I love you, Der.”
Derek smiles like he’s never done it before. “I love you more.”
“That’s impossible,” Will replies. He presses his mouth to Derek’s smile.
And the rest of their life begins.